OpenPhone: the address we list did not respond · last checked 29 Oct 2026
OpenPhone
Secondly is an open-source Android OS that embeds AI agents at the system level so they can see your screen and act across apps.
Secondly is genuinely unusual: instead of another assistant app, it puts the agent inside the Android system, which is what lets it see the screen and operate other apps at all. If you build agent tooling or research human-AI interaction on real hardware, that OS-level access is the whole reason to try it, and there is little else in this category to compare against directly. If you want a polished assistant today, this is not it — the docs are still being written and setup assumes you can flash a modified Android image. Go in expecting a sandbox, not a product.
Verdict generatedLast checked 25d ago · cite: rightaichoice.com/tools/openphone
- Developers building phone-based AI agents
- Researchers in human-AI interaction and agent systems
- Android hobbyists comfortable with custom ROMs
- Builders who need OS-level device access, not just an assistant app
- Non-technical users wanting a finished consumer product
- Anyone who needs iOS support
- People who want a normal assistant app without modifying their phone
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Skip Secondly if you want a polished assistant you can install and use today without building and flashing a custom Android system image.
Running it on your daily phone means buying a spare supported handset or accepting downtime while you flash back and forth
Secondly is an open-source project, so the comparison that matters is your own time and a spare device, not a subscription. That is cheaper in cash than commercial phone assistants, but it costs considerably more in setup hours and maintenance than any paid alternative.
In short
OpenPhone — Secondly is an open-source Android OS that embeds AI agents at the system level so they can see your screen and act across apps. Best for Developers building phone-based AI agents, Researchers in human-AI interaction and agent systems, Android hobbyists comfortable with custom ROMs. Free to use.
What is OpenPhone?
OpenPhone — Secondly is an open-source Android OS that embeds AI agents at the system level so they can see your screen and act across apps. Best for Developers building phone-based AI agents, Researchers in human-AI interaction and agent systems, Android hobbyists comfortable with custom ROMs. Free to use.
Secondly (also referred to as OpenPhone in some of its earlier project material) is a customized Android operating system that places AI agents inside the OS rather than inside a single chat app. Because the assistant sits at a privileged system level, it can read screen content, operate apps without you tapping through each step yourself, watch phone events like incoming messages, notifications, calls, time and location, and run background tasks you can review afterwards. You interact through a whole-phone chat surface and real-time voice, and agents can continue a task across multiple turns instead of resetting each time. Trigger types include event-driven agents (something happens on the phone, the agent reacts) and scheduled agents that combine device state with internet lookups, for example a daily brief. It is aimed at developers, researchers and Android hobbyists comfortable building a custom system image and flashing a device, rather than at buyers looking for a finished consumer assistant. The project is open source and its documentation is still in progress, so expect rough edges and limited device coverage rather than a store-bought experience.
Key features
- System-level AI assistant embedded directly in a customized Android OS
- Screen reading and UI context awareness
- Agent operates apps without manual taps
- Real-time voice and chat interaction with the agent
- Watchers that run background tasks triggered by phone events
- Policy, approvals and audit trails for agent actions
- Task continuation across multiple turns
- Event-triggered agents on messages, notifications, calls, time and location
- Scheduled internet-aware agents that combine phone state with web info
- Open source project on GitHub
- Customized Android system image you flash to a device
- Privileged assistant surface with full device access
- Whole-phone chat interface as the control surface
- Background runs that stay visible and reviewable
- Same-screen companionship mode where agent and user coexist
Behind the verdict
The interesting design decision in Secondly is placement. Most phone AI products are apps: they live in a sandbox, they see what you paste into them, and they stop at the boundary of the app. Secondly moves the assistant to the system layer, where it can read screen content, drive other apps without manual taps, watch phone events, and keep running in the background in a way you can inspect afterwards. That combination — privileged surface plus reviewable background runs plus task continuation across turns — is what makes it a research and building platform rather than a smarter chat box. The trigger model is where it gets practical. Event-triggered agents react to messages, notifications, calls, time or location, and scheduled agents combine the phone's state with web lookups to produce something like a daily brief. Watchers handle background work, and there is a policy, approvals and audit-trail layer so agent actions are not a black box. Real-time voice and chat give you two ways to steer it, and the same-screen companionship mode lets the agent work alongside you instead of taking over. Where it will frustrate you is everything around the core idea. It is an open-source Android fork, so stability and device support are inherently narrower than a stock build, the documentation is explicitly still in progress, and the setup path assumes comfort with custom ROMs and system images. Non-technical buyers, anyone on iOS, and anyone who wants a normal assistant app without modifying their phone are the wrong audience. If you are a developer or researcher who wants OS-level agent access on real hardware and can tolerate a rough build to get it, the access itself is the value.
Limitations
- Secondly is an open-source Android fork, so expect narrower device support and less stability than a stock build.
- Documentation is still in progress and setup assumes you are comfortable building and flashing a custom system image, which puts it out of reach for most general users.
- It is still rolling out to developers and builders rather than shipping as a finished consumer product.
as of 2026-10-04
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Is OpenPhone still active?
OpenPhone: the address we list did not respond · last checked 29 Oct 2026.
Viability score
How well maintained and how widely used is OpenPhone? Built from what the vendor actually publishes (docs, changelog, tutorials, integrations, pricing), whether the site is live, and how much real users discuss it. How we calculate this
Last calculated: October 2026
How we score →What do users say about OpenPhone?
What people actually say about OpenPhone — is it worth it?
Our community sentiment research written Jul 5, 2026 is more than 90 days old, so it is being re-reviewed against current data and is not shown.
How we verified this
Every listed fact about OpenPhone— pricing, features, links, status — is re-read from the vendor's own pages by our verification pipeline and each change is logged with a date; the last pass ran on 4 Oct 2026. Pages mix model-assisted synthesis with human review; see how we verify.
Verification history
We have re-verified OpenPhone 8 times since . Each pass re-reads the vendor's own pages and re-checks every listed field against that evidence; passes where nothing had changed are marked as such.
- — changed link health, website status
- — changed switching out, description, our verdict, features, hidden costs, limitations, switching in, who it suits, who should skip it, pricing fit, setup time, summary, use cases
- — changed setup time, pricing fit, who should skip it, hidden costs, summary, our verdict, description, SSL certificate, domain expiry
- — changed description
- — changed limitations, pricing page
- — changed SSL certificate
Showing the 6 most recent of 8 verification passes.
Free to cite with attribution — this page re-verifies continuously.
How much does OpenPhone cost in 2026?
OpenPhone: Free to use. Pricing last verified 4 Oct 2026.
Where the pricing makes sense
The company stage and team size where OpenPhone's pricing actually pencils out — and where peers do it cheaper.
Secondly is an open-source project, so the comparison that matters is your own time and a spare device, not a subscription. That is cheaper in cash than commercial phone assistants, but it costs considerably more in setup hours and maintenance than any paid alternative.
Has OpenPhone's pricing changed?
No plan price for OpenPhone has moved since we began logging in Aug 2026; the pricing page is re-read on every verification pass.
Who should pick OpenPhone?
Pick OpenPhone if you are Developers building phone-based AI agents, Researchers in human-AI interaction and agent systems, Android hobbyists comfortable with custom ROMs, Builders who need OS-level device access, not just an assistant app.
Look elsewhere if you are Non-technical users wanting a finished consumer product, Anyone who needs iOS support, People who want a normal assistant app without modifying their phone.
Skip it if Skip Secondly if you want a polished assistant you can install and use today without building and flashing a custom Android system image.
GeneratedReal-world workflow fit
Concrete scenarios for the personas OpenPhone actually fits — and what changes day-one when you adopt it.
You flash Secondly onto a spare handset, wire up an event-triggered agent on incoming messages, and use the audit trail to check what it actually did after each run.
Outcome: You get reproducible agent execution on real Android hardware with OS-level access rather than an emulator or a sandboxed app.
You run same-screen companionship mode while browsing, then review the background watcher logs to see how the agent interpreted screen context over a session.
Outcome: You collect real usage traces of an OS-level agent instead of controlled lab prompts.
You set a scheduled internet-aware agent to combine your phone state with web lookups and produce a daily brief, and an event agent to handle notification-driven follow-ups.
Outcome: Multi-step phone tasks run in the background with approvals you can review, so you stop tapping through them yourself.
Use cases
- Automate multi-step phone chores such as form filling and verification across several apps
- Run a companion agent that watches your screen and chats while you browse or shop
- Create event-triggered agents that react to incoming messages, notifications or calls
- Schedule daily briefs that merge phone state with information pulled from the web
- Build and test agentic workflows on real Android hardware with OS-level access
Setup time & first value
How long it actually takes to get something useful out of OpenPhone — broken out by persona, not the marketing-page minute.
Developers and researchers: budget an afternoon or more, since you are flashing a customized Android image before the first agent runs. Android hobbyists with ROM experience will be faster. Non-technical users: there is no install-and-go path here, so treat it as a weekend project at minimum.
Switching to or from OpenPhone
How to bring data in from common predecessors and how to get it back out — written for the switcher, not the buyer.
- →From a stock Android assistant app: move the same task into an OS-level agent so it can read screen context and act across apps
- →From a rooted or custom-ROM setup: flash the Secondly system image to get a privileged agent surface with approvals and audit trails
- →From desktop agent frameworks: port the workflow to Android event and schedule triggers to test it against real phone events
- ↗To an assistant app: if you only need chat and voice, a standard assistant avoids building and maintaining a custom image
- ↗To a commercial phone-agent product: choose this if you need supported devices and a finished product instead of an open-source build
Resources & guides
Tutorials & Learning
YouTube returned 6 videos for “OpenPhone”, and we withheld 6: 6 could not be judged, because “OpenPhone” is a single word that other videos use for other things. We are showing none, because we could not prove any of them are about OpenPhone.
Official links
What are the best OpenPhone alternatives?
The closest alternatives to OpenPhone we list are Agent Device, Droidrun and ClawBench. Ranked by direct product-type match, not category overlap.
| Alternative | Pricing | Starts at | Last verified |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agent Device | Free | Free | — |
| Droidrun | Freemium | Pricing not published | — |
| ClawBench | Free | Free | — |
Alternatives to OpenPhone
View all
Agent Device
Open-source CLI from Callstack that gives AI agents token-efficient, LLM-readable snapshots and control of real iOS, Android, TV, and desktop apps.
Tools that pair well with OpenPhone
Common stack mates teams adopt alongside OpenPhone, with the specific reason each pairing earns its keep.
Agent Device
Open-source CLI from Callstack that gives AI agents token-efficient, LLM-readable snapshots and control of real iOS, Android, TV, and desktop apps.
Droidrun
Droidrun gives AI agents real cloud Android phones with genuine device identity so they can operate mobile apps directly.
ClawBench
Open-source benchmark that runs AI browser agents on live websites and scores the HTTP request they actually fire.
OpenPhone vs its closest rival
OpenPhone's closest head-to-head is with Temporal Ai — Choose Temporal AI if you need a battle-tested, durable execution platform to orchestrate reliable AI agents and workflows with automatic retries, human-in-the-loop, and multi-SDK support—trusted by OpenAI and Replit. Choose OpenPhone if you're a developer or hobbyist wanting to experiment with a system-level AI assistant that sees the screen and operates apps on Android, and you're willing to flash a custom ROM. Verdict generated
Head-to-head comparisons
Openphone vs Temporal Ai
Choose Temporal AI if you need a battle-tested, durable execution platform to orchestrate reliable AI agents and workflows with automatic retries, human-in-the-loop, and multi-SDK support—trusted by OpenAI and Replit. Choose OpenPhone if you're a developer or hobbyist wanting to experiment with a system-level AI assistant that sees the screen and operates apps on Android, and you're willing to flash a custom ROM.
GeneratedOpenphone vs Spider Cloud
Spider Cloud and OpenPhone serve fundamentally different purposes: Spider Cloud is a cloud-based web crawling API for extracting structured data at scale, ideal for RAG pipelines and AI agents needing real-time web context. OpenPhone is a customized Android ROM embedding AI agents directly into the OS for phone automation and UI manipulation. Choose Spider Cloud if your need is data collection from the web; choose OpenPhone if you want to build phone-based AI agents that interact with apps and device events.
GeneratedOpenphone vs Presto Voice
Presto Voice and OpenPhone serve completely different needs: Presto is a commercial drive-thru AI for QSR chains focusing on revenue lift and order accuracy, while OpenPhone is an open-source Android OS for developers wanting to experiment with system-level AI agents. Your choice depends on whether you are a restaurant operator seeking proven ROI or a developer looking to build phone-based agents.
GeneratedFrequently asked questions
Used OpenPhone? Help shape our editorial sentiment research.